Patients who kill your Patience

Retail pharmacy (or working with the public) demands one huge element that most students lack. They don’t teach you this in school (although they should) nor do they even mention this anywhere in any textbook. Its called patience, and as the day wears on my patience dwindles and dwindles.

However some of my patients act like patience sinks, quickly sapping me of my patience reserves and turning me into an angry, irritable asshole until the clock-out bell rings. Since I haven’t done any sweeping stereotype posts in a while that piss people off, heres what you have been missing.

Old people. Staring at you with those big empty eyes, you wonder what they received from of being alive for 75+ years. They get confused /so/ fucking easily and make you explain things so many times you just wish they would go home and die. The words “fixed income” somehow results in $1.05 being too expensive for their heart medicine as they smoke that $5 pack of camel filters outside of the store. You honestly wish you could tell them “listen, you obviously aren’t mentally capable of taking care of your own medication, do you have anyone else that can help you?”. Wait, Ms Smith is on the phone asking what “Once Daily” means again!

Mothers with misbehaving children. If you had problems controlling one child, why on earth did you decide that having 2 or 3 more would be a good idea? I used to warn the mothers when their children would scream out of the front door of the pharmacy while she’s looking at greeting cards or earrings. Now I figure that once one gets hit by a car in the busy parking-lot she’ll learn to keep an eye on them. Yeah, I’m a dick, but after warning them time after time to control their kids, you figure that maybe all of her intelligence and common sense was deposited out through her vagina.

Uppity poor people. Entitlement, entitlement, entitlement. Free, free, free. To them, the world is fucking free and WHY IN THE FUCK are you not giving them trade name medication! Don’t get me wrong; 99% are awesome people who really do appreciate what is given to them by the state and just take their Rx’s without complaint nor bitch. The 1% however are begging for a one-way ticket to reality-check land. From wanting trade-name medications to complaining about their almost non-existent copays, these folk ham it up in the poor department for a slice of the pity-pie. I’m sorry, but I have stopped feeling sorry for you after you dropped $20 in earrings instead of that $1.00 copay for your kids antibiotics. I wish these people would die in an Escalade fire.

Snobby rich people. I want TRADE NAME HCTZ. They want trade name shit that hasn’t been trade name in 30 years! They want trade name hydrocortisone 1% and trade name prednisone! I wish I could give them generic and charge them AWP +10%. Paying more for something must make it work better. At least someone should get something out of all of the bitching.

Phillipino Home Health Nurses. Along with being pushy as hell, can’t speak English, and barely know a fork from a spoon; when they finally get done barking out orders to me (like I’m sort of employee subservant dog of theirs) I have to use every ounce of patience to not give them both barrels on the phone. I mean really, do you have to ask me why their blood pressure is up after you told me 2 seconds ago they have a FULL bottle of Norvasc sitting on their dresser? Medication is only useful if you actually take it, so their potassium is not going to magically come down while that unopened bottle of Kayexelate I dispensed 2 days ago sits there untouched. Last one called in orders for Humulin when the doctor specifically told her to call in Humalog, Whoops.

PBMs (MedImpact, Argus, Blue Shield, Wellpoint). Why did I go into this profession when I’m getting reimbursed less than my pizza boy makes in tips for 1 delivery?

Addicts. Lie lie lie, lie lie lie, lie lie lie. MY DOCTOR SAID I CAN HAVE IT EARLY. Listen, I don’t have the word “stupid” tattoo’d across my forehead, so after the 4th or 5th time you pull this “doctor said” bullshit (and I call the doctor to find out you lied to me 4 or 5 times), I’m going to stop calling the doctor and just outright tell you no. Yeah, you’re in chronic pain; yeah, your fatsomyalgia is acting up again; but honestly, I can’t prescribe or dispense your dope early! Its not my fault you burned every bridge with every ER and doctor in town who pegged your pills with “MUST LAST 30 DAYS”. Crying to me isn’t going to work either. Sure, I’ll transfer it to another pharmacy, only if you don’t come back. This class of people really drains you as they slowly chip away your sanity and patience. I mean after the 5th phone call to see if their pain pills were approved early you sorta just want to fill them so the’ll leave you the fuck alone. They are worse than nagging children solely because their vote in the presidential election counts as much as yours.

And last, but finally not least:

My uppity readers. These people somehow think this site is all about happiness or pharmacy-life. Its not. Its about the shit that pisses ME and every god damn pill-pushing pharmacist/tech out there off. If you get offended, here is a novel idea. DONT READ IT. I’m tired of working 8 hours a day in an environment that has deemed it deeply offensive to speak your mind in the name of “Political Correctness” retarded bullshit. I use this site to rant and bitch so I don’t go suck on the shotgun barrel of sanity. So if you feel it necessary to tell me your life story about how you have chronic pain, and post some 40 page comment about how you think i’m an asshole thats fine, however know that I don’t really give a shit about you nor what your biased feelings are about pain management. You’re going to justify that pill-seeking behavior is right and just dispite pages upon pages of pharmacists bitching about it. So next time you feel ranty about how I’m a big meany pharmacist remember that you don’t work in a pharmacy (hell, you probably don’t work period!), I realistically don’t act at work the way I act here (duh), and there isn’t a retail pharmacist out there who wouldn’t stand behind this site and tell you “you’re a dumbass, TAP is right”.

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68 thoughts on “Patients who kill your Patience”

AMEN! A hundred times over…way to hit it on the head once again. I LOVE your site…it keeps my sanity most days. But you forgot one other type of person..the lingerers (?) those customers who lurk at the pick up counter 2 seconds after they drop off their RX and ask “is it done yet?” grrr! hate em!

To paraphrase from ‘The Big Lebowski’. I like your style TAP, I just wish you wouldn’t cuss so much.
Not that I’m a prude about profanity……far from it. But when it is used excessively it dilutes the emphasis when it is needed. Many of the same things that bother you are annoyances to all of us. I’m old enough now, that I only get upset maybe once a week.
Relax TAP, we will always have the PI’s (perennially indignant) among us. Just laugh it off, but don’t stop blogging.

Oh god, its the old man who calls 12 times…and that is not an exaggeration…to ask questions for his wife about medications. They get Benadryl and read one line on the back at a time and call me with a question on each line. She can talk just fine, but he still acts as the go between so I am on the phone for at least 3 minutes a pop. “It says here not to take with glaucoma….so can she take this if she wears glasses?” After the 5th call I started to cringe when the phone rings because it might be him. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I fully understand what shell shock is like!
Also TAP, I don’t care what anyone else thinks, I bet your patients love you as an RPh! I’m sure this site has helped you maintain professionalism in situations that some of these commenters could not even fathom…let alone keep a straight face on their own. Its nice to have a site to read where truly nothing is safe!

Hey, if I could write a 40 page comment about you and this website. The only thing I would write about is how RIGHT YOU ARE about almost everything you talk about. I have been a tech for 9 years and now I am a teacher at a technical institute. You mention how schools do not teach about the real world pharmacies and what not. That is exactly what I do now. I think people should know what they are getting themselves into. Most of them are up to the challenge.
Thanks Much TAP for all you write.

You can get early refills on narcotics? I seriously thought that there was a law against that. I keep my husband’s doctor appointments spaced 30 days apart so that I can take in the prescription when he gets it. I guess you learn something new everyday. (Don’t worry, we still won’t be bugging the pharmacist or the doctor for early refills.)

I now work at a place where I get most rich snobs and “entitlement” dopeheads. What I like to do to make my own fun (yes, having fun working in the pharmacy is not against the laws of nature, though it may feel that way) is that I would treat the dopeheads very well, speaking in Ebonics (ever heard an Asian guy in his late thirties going “ghetto”?), hence pissing off the rich snobs behind him. By the way she’s only rich because she married rich. What was that saying about trailer park and the girl?
OR.
Being a kiss ass to some rich baffoon and then snicker at the dopehead behind him. I wonder how long can I continue to do this until I get into trouble?
Anyway, TAP. what you said maybe stereotypical, but hey, truth is truth no matter what label people put on it. Keep on ranting.

Keep up the good fight, TAP! You remind me why I finally gave up retail and started working hospital. I imagine you are great with you customers, and I can fully understand your need to vent, brother. We all have stories, I’m sure, similar to what you write. Anyway, big fan, and keep ranting!

Each of these groups teaches me something as a Pharmacist….
The Old – Those who refuse to learn also refuse to die.
The Mothers of Unruly Brats – Reproduction can take the place of real accomplishments.
The Uppity Poor – Charity breeds helplessness and entitlement.
The Snobby Rich – Self-importance knows no financial restrictions.
Other Medical Professionals – Education doesn’t make someone useful or intelligent.
PBMs – Everything can, and will be, outsourced.
Addicts – Everyone lies. Most people don’t give a shit about you, merely what you can provide for them.
These are the lessons the pharmacy teaches me.

I love these rants, I can identify with every one of those groups. I have another one, being stuck here in a multiple –
non-pharmacist head office bosses – target! target! target! We have to do Medicines use reviews, a great service in principle, but when you are told to avoid people with lots of problems and concentrate on single item, easy money scripts, a peice of you dies inside. And when they tell you you’re making up how busy you are, when they only popped in for 5 minutes, on a tuesday afternoon with the local surgery closed.
Well said about the people who complain you are a bad person on here. If i saw a website marked – http://www.hotyoungphillipinoladyboys-wrestlingincustard.com I wouldnt go clicking on it then whine cos it offends me now would I?
Keep on ranting TAP!!

Numbers 1, 3, and 4 are why as of ~January, I won’t be in pharmacy (or any medical profession, for that matter) anymore.
Thank God. Fucking poor people with their hand in my wallet. Fuck them and fuck the state of Massachusetts for facilitating millions of human waste products with entitlement issues.
Er… I meant “Beautiful and Unique Snowflakes with a basic human right to free everything.”

ITA with all of your listings. The people who stare at me in hopes of their medication being dispensed faster usually make me work slower. Only 2 yrs in the trenches, and I’ve seen a lot of pharmacy madness – ’til I come & read yer blog.
Thanks for telling it like it is – TAP rocks once again!
murgatr
Pharmacy Tech RDC’06

This is the best blog I’ve ever visited. I read this along with Fast Food Pharmacy, Drugs R Phun, Your Pharmacist May Hate you, etc…and I get a kick out of all of them. BUT TAP is the undisputed king of them all. I do hope we’ll continue to get these posts for years to come.
As a chemist working in biotech, I’m considering two pathways for graduate school – an MBA or a Pharm.D. These posts…errr..rants are making me think twice about becoming an R.Ph. each day. The more I read, the more frightened I become.

I had a pt the other day scream at me, the Rph, and the manager-on-duty about her precious OTC Monistat not being covered by Medicaid/Medicare/some randomass insurance with zero copays. Apparently, if it wasn’t covered, we were supposed to call the doctor and get it changed. Since I wasn’t the one that took her script, I didn’t know that, yet I got the screaming anyway. I wanted to just give her a handful of valium and say “go home, eat all of these, and EVERYTHING will be cured”.

“Uppity poor people. Entitlement, entitlement, entitlement. Free, free, free. To them, the world is fucking free”
Exactly! We have this complete ASSWAD on Medi-Cal who wants a 90 day supply on everything! The state draws a line on how much they’ll pay and the DICKFACE has been told over and over again he can’t have 720 Gabapentin 600mg’s because THE FUCKING CLAIMS GET REJECTED! Yesterday he ordered it AGAIN and said he wanted 90 days! This BRAIN DEAD MUSLIM ASSHOLE can GO GET FUCKED! We’re not giving him 90 days of anything that we lose money on! I don’t care if there’s a goddamn restraining order in place! When THE FUCK are EDS and DHS going to comply?????

Admittedly, customer service sucks. And you basically have a lot of education for working in an industry almost identical to the layout of Taco Bell. But at least you don’t have to deep breath 65 year old rank, overly moist, putrid, brilliantly yellow, sadly foreshadowing of what your wife’s may be in basic form (not odor, mine’s smells like a rose) in like 35 years sans the wizard’s sleeves FUCKING VAGINA.
Bitch stunk up an 42 bed ER. As often as you deal with an annoying old person or addict, I’ve got my head up the vageen of a fucking pussy petri dish.
But good post!
The R.N. formerly known as AMN

You left out “the people who do stupid things then blame the pharmacist for them”. A man came into my store a few days ago at 10 am, picked up a refill of sleeping pills, walked over to the drinking fountain and took a pill. THEN he read the prescription label. He came back to the counter and said we had given him the WRONG PRESCRIPTION. It didn’t seem to matter to him (or to his wife who came to pick him up) that he had ordered the sleeping pills ONLINE two days before. No, sir! We were supposed to know (some how) that he MEANT to get his blood pressure meds! So far this debacle has involved the pharmacy manager, store manager, and district pharmacy manager. God save me from stupid people!

Okay, I have one to add…
Nurses who think they are gods…
Had an rx called in a couple weeks ago, doc usually send the med 1 BID #60 with 5 refills. Doc sent it 1 BID #30 0 refills. Mom realizes it 10 days later that she only got 15 days worth. She calls me, I double check the original and tell them the dr’s office screwed up, I need a new rx for the 1 mo supply.
Pt calls and the Nurse tells them…I screwed up, I should have caught it, and I will fix it with a new Rx so they do not have to pay another copay….Umm, I am supposed to fill it and eat a $50 copay…I doubt it…I called them a yelled at them and then I was happy!

You are fantastic, I cried laughing reading this! I am a brand new pharmacist and have just discovered how much I hate my job. I love reading your blog after a horrible day of work, to know there are people out there who deal with the same shit that i do on a daily basis. Everything you write is completely true and you don’t miss a detail. This one was my favorite, you got almost all the stereotypes…you forgot the irritating drug reps who come at the worst possible moment to push their biased studies on you, and the patients who come in for prescriptions at 11:55 pm (yes we are open till midnight!!)

Uppity poor people… I can totally relate. I have one patient who has been throwing fits because medicaid won’t cover her glucose tabs, or gel, or any of those OTC things. It’s like 99 cents! BUY it! Oh, and maybe if you don’t go through your 30 days of insulin in 20, you won’t NEED glucose tabs! I know the fruit punch ones taste like candy, but that’s not what they’re for….

My regular job is in a hospital pharmacy, but I do still work one weekend a month in a large Canadian retail chain.
The patients that piss me off are the ones that “forget” to go to their doctors when their current scripts are running low, so they run out on a weekend (when I’m working). As long as it’s not a controlled med or a narcotic, I usually tell them I will give them a couple of days worth until they contact their doctor. For most of these patients, this is the only time it has happened and they are grateful for the “advance.” It’s the ones that say the want 2 weeks worth that really piss me off. I tell them that what I am doing is actually illegal (giving them presciption medication without proper authorization) and that if they want 2 weeks worth, there is a walk-in clinic next door or an Emerg department down the road. If they are still uppity, I ask them if they would expect to go to the grocery store and be given a steak that they could pay for next week or next month.
Another patient that really pisses me off is the one that cannot believe it will take about 1/2 hour to fill the one medication on their script. I explain to them that there are a number of people in the waiting area and in the store who dropped off their scripts before he did. I even offer to show him all the baskets on the counter. If he still gives me a hard time, I tell him that if he wants to, he can ask all the people in the waiting area if it is okay to fill his script before theirs. If they agree, I will fill his right away. You can bet that has never happened!
Keep up the rants TAP!

Fucking brilliant … you nailed it on the head (yet again) in your descrition of the parade of malcontents that invade my pharmacy. It’s this collection of assholes that makes my life miserable. These folks make me want to put a giant valium salt lick in the middle of the pharmacy.
This blog should be required reading for anyone in pharmacy school … so they know what their in for!
Rant on, TAP!

I’ve got another one. the FUCKING EAR DOCTOR who writes Ciprodex for EVERY FUCKING BLUE CROSS MEDI-CAL patient even though we’ve called and faxed 100 times in the last 20 days that it’s NOT FUCKING COVERED!!!!!! AAAAARRRRGGHHHHH!

So so true. You missed something on old people : they want to stand there and waste your precious time because your very busy and would actually like to have a lunchbreak but no, they have to tell you in details everything that’s wrong with them and how their son never calls but they don’t care because they hate his wife.
And people who shout so you can hear ‘i don’t know what’s taking so long?’ What do you think we only have your Rx to do? Come and do my job for a day. I think i’m in the wrong job..

I take TAP prn daily.
I can personally attest to its efficacy as the most excellent of any anti-anxiety medicines!
Your blog is what keeps me sane…just knowing I’m not alone while floating along this sewer of life in a glass-bottomed boat keeps me on an even keel.
Thanks to TAP!
Warning: TAP is habit-forming but has no other side effects.

As someone who has had a love affair with web surfing for almost ten years, I am really not suprised that some people… are
the way they are. They see title and yet still read on.
Angry. Pharmacist. What part of that is so difficult to understand?
——
SCRIPTGAL,
(laughs) You beat me to the punch! I kept imagining Bart and Lisa Simpson asking over and over again, “Is it filled yet?”
AP: No.
B&L: Is it filled yet?
AP: No.
B&L: Is it filled yet?
AP: No.
B&L: Is it filled yet?
AP: No.
B&L: Is it filled yet?
(AP reaches over counter and starts to choke Bart…)

I am a hearing impaired pharmacist and boy do I take advantage of that. When an idiot customer comes in, I pretend I didn’t hear them and the lazy tech finally will go over since I am not responding. Usually I get the counter since lazy tech is incredibly lazy, but if it’s a druggie jerk or suchlike, I let her get it! I get enough grief from druggie dude.

While I agree that we could do with a little less profanity, I understand it. I mean, who doesn’t get irritated at Ms “I don’t know how to use a telephone to call my refills in, but I expect that just like my food at Burger King, it is ready right away, and no, I can’t read so I didn’t see NO REFILL printed clearly at the bottom of my bottle.”
Really, I think every pharmacist who fills more than 5 rx’s a day and does a half decent job feels your pain. But what I want to know is–how do you deal with it? Does the ranting here create enough vent to deal with it? I’ve only been doing this 7 years, and I’m already ready to slip some arsenic into Mr “I always get three months supply–my insurance pays for a three month supply–it doesn’t matter that my doctor can’t write a number higher than 30.”‘s Verapamil capsules. So far, I’ve restrained myself from jumping over the counter and shoving the darn Xanax down the stupid lady who gets her 10 day supply EVERY 10 days, and I’ve settled for being a smart butt and highlighting “No refill” in bright yellow on everyone’s bottle.

No, my favorite is overweight, smelly, bitchy, psychotic women who complain about the dumbest shit ever….and I mean the dumbest shit ever. Just because you’re fat and lazy and don’t care about yourself and have to take 20 medications for your 25 health conditions, don’t yell at me for any little thing that may not go right while you sit on your fat ass eating potato chips not giving a damn about your health or taking any responsibiity at all. I cannot stand fat and lazy people who stare at me over the counter like they want to eat me or break me in half for being healthy and in shape. I had one customer say that they thought I was better than other people because of the way I look and act…what that I take care of myself and my well-being instead of being like you? HA…lost my respect on that comment. The public never seizes to amaze me. Everyday…literally I get bitched at for something new everyday…something stupid…something not even worth opening your mouth to even complain about.

I especially enjoy it when Medicaid customers pay their $1 with change. Do they think that makes me say “Wow, she really MUST be poor, or she wouldn’t have given me 2 dimes and 16 nickels.” Never mind that she’s using an iphone while waiting for her dandruff shampoo.

If you hate your job so much, why not get a job with no human contact?
The services world sucks, I feel your pain and understand it.Yet, when I got fed up with my industry, money is not everything, I ran.I will continue to read though and you are a trooper.

How about the ones that reply “I don’t know” when you ask them if they have gotten prescriptions at your pharmacy before. MORON!! How can you not know where you have gotten your medicine before. Or the ones that say “no but my son (daughter,mom,ex-skank baby momma) has”. MORON!!! Did I ASK you if your son (daughter,mom,ex-skank baby momma) got medicine here? NO!! NO DRUGS FOR YOU! The best are the foreign white VISA card holders that “no ingles” and have their 5 year old kid translate for them, but can understand “You can’t get your Vicodin because you just had a 25 day supply filled at the pharmacy down the road yesterday”.

I love the rants TAP (or ATP for those Haitian nurses aides, lol)!!! Here are the top five reasons why I love (yes, I said love) being a pharmacist and not an MD:
5. Being able to go home at night and NOT getting paged at all hours of the night!!! (Doc, can you call in my Methadone???)
4. NOT giving half my yearly income to some scumbag insurance company for insurance premiums ($161.00/yr versus 30k for my Ob/GYN friend)
3. NOT being asked to write scripts at every dinner party, bar mitzvah, hoedown, tractor pull etc…(I stubbed my toe can you write me a script for some Percodan, Percocet etc…)
2. NOT having to deal with PAs (prior authorization) paperwork and having the patient bitch me out cuz the new me-too dumbass drug that I wrote for isn’t covered (WTF??!! why is my Pristiq not covered????, cuz dumbass, its the same as venlafaxine/Effexor!!!)
1. THANK F-ing God I don’t have to touch these people, only stare at their blank faces when you tell them the copay (yes we actually live in a capitalist society where you pay for services!!!)
P.S. to TAP…PLEASE do a rant on the WORST insurance companies (I nominate Wellpoint/Next Rx, RxAmerica (45 min on hold!!!!), Anthem Part D etc….)

Amen to all the groups.
btw, I hate addicts. Haven’t had much encounters w/ old ppl yet since the ones that came in so far have understanding caretakers/relatives w/ them.
Had an issue with an old lady wanting her Xanax (she has 0 refills and doc hasn’t called it in). I came close to chugging the vial at her face.

What about the patient that insists they have “never paid that much for that medication in their entire life!” So you login to the computer because you just walked into the pharmacy for the day, you look up their history of copays only to find that for the last 2 years they’ve paid the exact same thing. So after wasting 5 minutes to find out, you tell them, “No sir, this is the same copay you’ve paid for this medication for the last 2 years at least,” and the response you get is, “oh ok, i don’t remember it being that high.”
Or how bout for those in florida, the patient that calls you 5 times a day every single day to ask if they can get their ambien filled. They were told the date that it can be filled by the pharmacist on day 1. You say no each and every day. Day 6 (still 5 days early) a hurricane starts heading your way (or actually a little west of you) so guess who the first person to throw the “State of Emergency” shit in your face is? Ambien-Fiend101. Guess what lady – I know what state of emergency means and I’m just-a-tech. It means my pharmacist gets to use their *gasp* professional judgement on whether the narcotic is needed for the continuation of your life. When your doctor put the little prn squiggle after the sig – that means as needed. He obviously didn’t think you needed to be taking it every single day – could do you some good to go a couple days without it, addict.
For the rest of you hurricane oxycontin fiends and parents with 20 kids that dope them all up on adderall because they don’t want to discipline them? Want to hear something great? The number 1 limitation in FL statute 465.0275 is *drum roll*- (1) The prescription is not for a medicinal drug listed in Schedule II appearing in chapter 893.
Goodluck with that 🙂 *apologies for having a one track mind – we just did 4x’s the normal # of scripts for our pharmacy in the last 4 days because of these stupid storms so I’m kinda in anti-state-of-emergency mode :P*

Mr. Slattery,
I will take your advice which you so readily spew out like a nasty bit of vaginal discharge. In fact I will email my boss and quit right now, tell the state to place my license on inactive status, renounce the profession of pharmacy, move into the woods and live off the land. But I will do this if and only if you can make me one promise, and it better not be a lie. I want you to swear right now TAP as your witness that you have not now, nor will you ever have bitched, whined, complained ever about a job that you have had.

sounds like the peeps i deal with at work day in and day out…except the filipino ladies…
peeves me is those with medicaid, come in texting on their freaking sidekicks or carrying their louis vuittons but dun have a dollar to pay for their atenolol or lipitor. gives u the excuse everytime, “why i have to pay? no..medicaid pays for everything”….no dumbass…we the tax-paying public pay for most of it, now fork over the buck

I love your blog. It always gets me laughing at the end of the day. I am a pharmacy tech working through my undergraduate schooling while applying to pharmacy school, and everything you mention in your blog is so undeniably true it just makes it even funnier.
If people bitch about you being an asshole, then its very clear they have never worked one day in a retail pharmacy, because the picture you paint is just the plain truth, not some asshole, one-sided opinion on pharmacies and the patients who come in to them.

I have 2 that i’m not sure where they fit in..but they try my patience and i’m just a tech!
1-
The person who was told by us 15 days ago that their insurance only allows a certain number of pills in a certain number of days…let’s say 23 pills of Imitrex every 30 days. 15 days ago they got 17 pills and now they want 12 more..which is more then the amount allowed. You explain to them, they yell at you…the pharmacist explains to them..and they yell louder and demand you call insurance. You get put on hold for 10 minutes, then the nice insurance rep tells you the same thing you figured out 20 minutes ago. The pt. flips out, demands that you change it…tells everyone you are refusing them meds and yet refuses to pay cash for the amount allowed. We won’t mention the fact that the 30 day period is just around the corner and technically they should have enough pills to last them. They get on the phone themselves with insurance and promptly lie…telling them that the dr. wrote it correctly and the pharmacy is doing it wrong..the insurance agency says something that we can’t hear…the pt. agrees and we aren’t even able to defend ourselves. The pt. gets off the phone and demands we call a (international) 800 number and talk to this specific person who just agreed with him that we’re whack. You call to appease him and the person who answers the phone (after a 10 minute hold) laughs hysterically before telling you that she has no idea who “shelia” is and “good luck honey”
The pt. flips…transfers his prescription and then runs into the same problem at the new pharmacy because lo and behold…it’s the insurance and NOT the pharmacy…imagine that. They return to you without word that they were wrong, and bring up the same argument the next go-around.
2-
the patient walks up and you complete their rx input and tell them aboug 15-20 minutes…they scoff and say “i’ll be back in 10” and then demand their meds in 5. These are the same people who look at a bottle that is sitting next to you (not even their medication) and demand “it’s right there, why the hell is it going to take 20 minutes to dump it in a bottle” I believe these particular people were mentioned in another blog…those that don’t understand that it’s a little more then dumping it in a bottle and slapping a label on it. Sure…we could do that if we didn’t care about safety, your other meds, losing our jobs, or getting sued…non-withstanding that doing just what you require will end with either your death because of wrong meds or your suing us because you couldn’t wait that extra 10 minutes

OMG PHONE ETIQUETTE!! YOU FORGOT THE PHONES!!
when they walk up and are on their cell phones, having a fight with the SOB who impregnated them, and then wave a finger at you saying
“can you hold on a minute?”
this happens IN PERSON and ON THE PHONE!
in person? i say “next please!”
on phone? CLICK!
I saw a business that hung a sign saying
“Cell phones interfere with our wireless…please turn them off”
Wiresless my ASS!! WHAT A GREAT IDEA!!
we’re working on getting that one up here!
Thanks for the rants…Although i do have to agree…less is more with the cussing…i have to edit HALF of it out to take it into work! ha!

I hear you man,,im no pharmacist,,but ican especially relate to your part about the poor,demanding , everythings paid for welfare too lazy to get a fucking job and now that we have obama they never will pieces of shit ! whew! Damn,,youi nailed it on all types. I love it.

Thats fantastic. And all true! Im an assistant manager who works in a pharmacy, and I get to deal with all the spill-over of that crap. The effing people who decide that the Pharmacist is lying to them, and “want to speak to a manager” or who ALREADY asked EVERYONE in the pharmacy the same 5 questions 15 times, and need to ask them 10 more, whether or not i can legally answer them or not (and when i tell them i cant they still ask anyway)! Or when their fighting their prices and I have to return their Rx because their bi***ing about the $1.00 copay and they still complain to me about it and give me shi* even though I don’t know about a darn thing about why their ins or medicaid decides they should through a few pennies to their health care…and wait….do you REALLY want me to tell you why your Viagra isn’t covered? Bless you pharmacists…cuz after the retail customers shi* those RX patients put me over the Goshdarn edge.

Amen, brother! As far as the uppity poor person, we had one particular shit-headed shit-head who religously picked up and payed full price for his Viagra every 2-3 weeks at around $55-65 a pop. However, when his kid’s antibiotic was $4 instead of the usual 50 cents – all because his sorry ass didn’t keep up with the kid’s medicaid – he refused to get it!

I have been working retail 8 years now and I can say TAP you are so right. You however left out a few other things that really tick me off:
1. Latino/Hispanics who cannot or hardely cannot speak English whom have no idea what medications they take, why their Medicaid won’t cover their OTC crap and why their refills are too early to fill 90% of the time. You can try explaining it somehow I million times but it does not go through.
2. Old people who in the pharmacy for an rx 30 minutes before it is due to open and count the seconds to make sure the pharmacy us opened and ready to go at 8AM sharp.
3. Stupid coupons for retarded ME-2 Drugs!

Why is it that all pharmacist when arguing always bring up “I have more education than you.” So what? I am educated as well but can defend my thoughts an opinions without always dropping the education card.

My Pharmacist recently told me about you and I hadn’t got the chance to read it until now and I should have read it immediately! I’m a Pharmacy Tech. at CVS/Pharmacy and well, it’s perhaps the worst job, EVER. People are rude, stuck up, ungrateful, impatient and most importantly selfish. For everyone who says this gentleman is an “asshole” clearly knows nothing about working in a Pharmacy let alone the medical field and you are probably one of the customers everyone bitches about the moment you exit the building.

Really you are all bitter disgruntled heartless asshats that are just jealous or self righteous bc others are prescribed Xanax and Valium and you aren’t . If you knew why these people are prescribed these types of meds, you’d apologize or not bc you’re just another egotistical pharma phuck. Go kill yourself and die